Another damp and dismal story...
... but there is better news towards its end.
The major works last year by Thames Water, to install new pipes and a pumping Station (the latter at the corner of Speer Rd TD and Summer Rd TD), was designed to ameliorate flooding and backup of the foul water sewers that spewed up into the High Street and some other parts of the village. It was not aimed at surface water drainage along some of the village's main roads, which has continued to be a problem.
There are many gullies and drains that are blocked. Some blockages may be recent - accumulated leaves and detritus made worse by the difficulty caused to street sweeping by parked cars over the gullies. Others have been a problem for many years - particularly the gullies and drains along Station Road where even moderate rain causes sheets of standing water with attendant dangers for cars and insufferable conditions for pedestrians.
Residents' Association councillors have tried for many years to get the responsible authorities to clear these blockages - there are records in Thames Ditton Today of a certain Ruth Lyon taking up the question of 'Basing Lake' with Elmbridge in 1983. The responsibility is divided, and has changed hands over the past decades. As far as your webmaster can establish, surface drains used to be the responsibility of Elmbridge Borough Council and for some years they subcontracted to Thames Water. In 2000, responsibility for surface water drains along with other road maintenance was taken over by Surrey CC Highways Department (Leatherhead), who contract to Carillion, who subcontract to Grangeways ... and so forth. But there still seems to be some overlap - the runoff joins Thames Water's sewers somewhere near the junction of Station Road with the High Street and there becomes Thames water's responsibility ...
There is clear scope for buck-passing and a typical chain of events would be:
◊ Residents complain to councillor (our RA councillor for the Dittons on Surrey CC is Peter Hickman).12 January 2007
◊ Councillor leans on Surrey CC officials to take it up; official visits the site.
◊ Official tasks contractors who may or may not visit the site before tasking subcontractors who may or not visit the site before attempting the work.
◊ Subcontractors' workmen do the job, or not, as the case may be. They are rarely if ever supervised and there is rarely if ever any follow-up testing. They report the job as done.
◊ We wait for the next heavy rain to see the results, if any, and the process begins again.
The last such round was in October / November 2006 but the flooding caused by Thames Water's burst main on 30 November highlighted - if such demonstration was needed - that just about all the drains along Station Road from the railway bridge to the High Street were totally blocked. During the last few months of the year, a Station Road resident got up a petition of neighbours and commuters and sent it in to both Elmbridge and Surrey. Meanwhile Peter Hickman's efforts were supplemented by those of RA councillor on Elmbridge Council for Weston Green, Tannia Shipley, in her attempt to get Surrey to deal with their part of the serious blockages that lead to floods under Esher Station railway bridge. After a couple of promises and reschedulings, Surrey's contractors finally sent their big 'combo' drainbuster on 8/9 January to visit both areas.
After heavy rain the following night - convenient for our testing purposes - the good news is that they seem to have cleared three drains in Station Road TD, including the one giving rise to 'Basing Lake.' Less good is that they left without finishing all the drains and some others in adjacent roads. However, Peter has kept at them and is promised that the drain buster will revisit the village next week (beginning 15 January) to finish off the work in Speer Road, Watts Road and the part of Station Road near Thames Ditton Station. Also Summer Road as the metal gullies on the speed bumps there are all blocked.
|
6 March 2007 |
|